Sunday Ride – Fremantle to Baldvis via the Freeway

Teed up a ride with a few folks from the Bicycles Network Australia forum to ride south on the freeway bike path as far as we could go, which turned out to be the end of the freeway at Baldvis (where the roundabout is).

I decided to do the ride from Fremantle meeting the others at 6:45 AM for a 7:00 AM departure from Roe Highway/Freeway intersection. This meant a starry eyed start to the day at 5:15 AM when I had a spot of breakie (banana, cereal, yoghurt and good old cinnamon). This turned out to be an about right and sustained me well through the ride.

Left Fremantle at 6:00 AM and headed down South Street. Not a bad ride at that hour of the morning as the traffic is light and so running out of bike lane early into the ride was not an issue. Of course I forget to turn the timer on the Edge 305 until about 4.5 km into the ride!

Anyway made the freeway in about 30 minutes, turned south to the Roe Highway and then realised there is no “intersection” as such. Thankfully sort of bumped in Brad and we pulled up along the chain fence. After awhile Steve and then Graeme turned up so the meeting “place” worked out okay. We found out later that we missed Cambo and his mate which was bummer.

Heading south to Baldvis, Brad set the pace and myself and Steve worked at staying on pace. I reckon we averaged around 27 km/h on this leg. All up a nice “downhill” ride south with any interruptions due to intersections etc. Once we hit Baldvis Brad peeled off for other adventures and myself, Steve and Graeme headed to Hungry Jack’s for coffee. Not much choice here – Caltex or HJs. At least the coffee wasn’t too bad. I had a couple of Go Natural bars with my coffee. A all fruit bar which I will pass on and a yoghurt bar which wasn’t bad. I think a banana would have been a better option. Also knocked off a full bottle of home made energy drink on the run south.

Heading north back to Roe Highway, our pace was slower, averaging around 24 km/h with no Brad to push us and a easterly plus going “uphill” to hinder the pace. It was also heating up now. On this leg I knocked off two bottles of home made energy drink.

At Roe Highway we split up, myself taking South Street back to Fremantle. More traffic this time, but still find it okay. Drivers where being reasonable and keeping good clearance which is appreciated.

I had planned to then ride from Fremantle to Churchlands but once I had had a shower and a drink of Sustagen Sport I just really wasn’t up to riding on.

The data from the ride can be found in my journal at BikeJournal.com but in summary, I rode 82.58 km at an average of 23.90 km/h with a ride time of three hours 17 minutes. All done on my Giant CRX 1 flatbar. My ranking on BikeJournal.com following this ride is 956 (yes, broke into the top 1000 internationally) and 19 in the club rankings (another personal best, breaking into the top 20).